Justin Buist

Here’s something I’ve been told and seen in my own employment deals: General rule of thumb is that you cost your employer 25% more than what you actually take home in pay to keep on the payroll.

Aside from what you take home there’s various taxes, your health care plan, retirement plan, the coffee you drink at work, toilet paper, payroll overhead, etc. It’s usually about 25% of your gross income, but not if you’re in the UAW.

They put their average cost of an hour of labor at around $71 last I saw. Some say as high as $81, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ve seen more than one person rush to their defense and say something like, “Oh but they only MAKE like $32 an hour! That number’s bogus!”

Well, guess what? It doesn’t matter if those dollars don’t show up on your paycheck directly, it still costs your employer money, and your compensation packages as a UAW employee are out of whack with what the rest of the world works with.

Answer: The dumbest way possible to heat an outdoor eating patio.

Question: What would be hanging industrial grade IR light beams 4′ above the diner’s heads?

Theresa and I ventured into a restaurant Saturday evening that she had read some good things about online. A nice place, good food, and the prices weren’t bad. So, we went there.

Upon arrival we were informed that we’d have to sit out on the patio because we didn’t have a reservation. That was fine by us as it was a nice evening with a comfortable temperature.

Walking out onto the patio I got hit with a blast of heat to my head. “Strange. Hope they don’t sit us next to wherever this god awful heat is coming from,” I thought. Walking to our seat I looked up and thought, “Are you fucking kidding me? These things are on!?” Oh hell.

We took our seats and both of us started squirming around trying to find shelter from the IR beams. My head’s sweating within minutes, because an IR light source doesn’t heat the ambient air, it just heats what it hits. Theresa looked up at it a few times, curious as to how the thing works, and shortly felt like her eyeballs were being cooked. A couple sitting across from us, further away from the IR light, were switching places to shield each other from the uncomfortable energy source.

It took longer than it should have, but we just walked out. I stuck it out because I knew she wanted to eat there and I suspect she stuck it out because she suggested the place. Once she said her eyes were burning that was it. It’s the only time I’ve ever walked out of a restaurant totally pissed off before any service was actually rendered.

I am absolutely stunned that a place like this can charge $25 a plate and stay in business. I’m sure the food is good, but you’d have to pay me to stand under an IR beam that damned closed to my head.

The place? Read Coach Inn, Niagra Falls, NY. I’d avoid it unless you’ve got a reservation or like being cooked under IR lamps.

I’ve seen this from more than one radio station, but it hit me again this weekend and reallly irked me.

I’m driving around listening to the radio and I’m on a local country station: Thunder 94.5. It’s a station full of new country music which is mostly a rock/country hybrid. During one of their breaks they did one of their little self-promo bits and it went something like this:

You’re listening to Thunder 94.5 where we play New Country! Not the same old stuff as B93!

Morons.

First, B93, 93.7FM, is the top country station in the area. There’s a darned good chance that if you’re listening to 94.5 then 93.7 is also on your radio’s saved stations list.

Congrats, you’ve just insulted a vast majority of your own listeners taste in music.

Second, and this is the one that really gets me, you just mentioned the name of your #1 competitor on the air. While you weren’t playing music. Unsurprisingly this reminded me to change the channel to your competition because they might actually be playing music instead of thumping their chests.

They were, and my dial was stuck there for quite some time.

Your little cunning plan didn’t work out so well, and it never will, because when you mention your competition while you’re not delivering the goods that I want I’m quite likely to put forth the .48 seconds worth the work and change the freaking channel.

Thus ends today’s lesson in shit not to do in the radio business.